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————乡土中国 全球视野

《文化人类学》教学大纲（二）

第二章   Culture

一、教学目的与要求

这一章主要学习文化人类学的关键词“文化”的概念，通过学习学生能够掌握“文化”这一概念并回答以下几个问题（1）人类学家是如何给“文化”定义的；（2）文化的特征及我们如何习得文化；（3）虽然世界各地文化多种多样，但是人类文化的共性有哪些；（4）什么是文化相对主义，文化相对主义如何帮助我们更好的理解他民族的文化。

二、重点及难点

重点： 人类学家对文化的定义；文化的特征；人类文化共有的要素；文化相对主义

难点： 文化变更的过程及文化调适；文化的评价

三、关键词

Adaptive nature of culture                   ethnocentrism 

 Cultural diffusion                           Innovation

 cultural  relativism                         Enculturation     

四、具体内容

第一节   The characteristic of culture(文化的特征)

1. 文化的定义

人类学家对文化有160多种，其中 ① 英国人类学家泰勒（E.B.Tylor）的定义堪称经

典： culture refers to”that complex whole which includes knowledge,belief ,art,morals,law.custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society ”( “文化或文明，从其最广泛的民族学意义上来说，是作为社会成员的个体所习得的包括知识、信仰、艺术、法律、道德、习俗以及其他一切能力和习惯的复合整体。”)

② Downs :culture has been defined as “a mental map which guides us in our relation to our surrounings and to other people ”

③ This book,we have defined the term culture as “everything that people have.think ,and do as members of a society. ”

④ Culture is a set of rules or standards,that,when acted upon by the members of a society,produce behavior that falls within a range of variance the members consider proper and acceptable.

2. 文化的组成因素

不管文化怎么定义，都包含以下几个部分的内容：

3．文化的特征

⑴ culture is shared(文化是共享的)

All cultures share certain basic characteristics;study of these sheds light on the nature and function of culture itself. Culture is a set of shared ideals,values,and standards of behavior.

●It cannot exist without society: a group of people occupying a specific locality who are dependen on each other for survival.  Ociety is held together by relationship determined by social structure or social organization.

● All is not uniformity within a culture ,partely because there is some differnce between male and female roles in any human society. Anthropologists use the word gender to refer to elaborations or meanings cultures assign to the biological differences between man and women.

● Age variation is universal,and in some cultures there is other subcultural variation as well. A subculture shares certain overarching assumptions of large culture,while observing a set of rules that is distintively different .

Its shared nature of culture makes our lives relatively uncomplicated .Since people share a common culture ,they are able to predict ,within limits,how others will think and behave.

People from the same culture are able to to predict one another ‘s behavior because they are exposed to similar culture conditioning.

文化是一套共享的理想、价值和行为准则。社会是，不仅为生存而相互依赖，而且也分享共同文化的人群。可是，虽然一切是共享的，可是一切都不是统一的。任何人都不具有她或他正好同样形式的文化。另外还存在进一步的差异，比如男女差异。文化需要做的就是，通过说明这些差异并指明人们应该对这些差异怎么做来对这些差异赋予意义。同时文化也需要指明，具有这些差异的人们应该相互怎样适应。由于各种文化这样做的方式不同，所以不同文化的社会之间就有很大的差别。社会性别继续定义性别区分而不是先前的”自然”性别，后者在经过多年发展之后已经区分不大。年龄的差别与其说是与年龄相关，还不如说它与经由某种规定的生命仪式相关。亚文化分享某些共同的准则，同时行使自己独特行为准则。

(2) culture is learned(文化是习得的)

 In addition to being shared, cultures are leared. Individual members of a society learn the accepted norms of social behavior rather than biologically inherited through the process of  enculturation.

Enculturation :the process by which a society ‘s culture is transmitted from one generation to the next.

● Through enculturation one learns the socially appropriate ways to satisfying one’s biologically determined needs.

● Not all leared behavior is cultural.

文化是习得的,而不是生物学遗传的.经过濡化，人们学会在社会上恰如其分的满足自己生物的需要。需要区分下面两个的差异：自然需要本身和习得的满足需要的方式。每种文化以自己的方式决定前者如何得到满足，从而形成后者。

（3）Culture is based on symbol

When Leslie White observed that all human behavior originates in the use of symbols ,he expressed an opinion shared by all anthropologists.

● Art,religion,and money involve the use of symbols . e.g. a christian cross

● The most important symbolic aspect of culture is language---the substitution of words foe objects. Through language humans are able to transmit culture from one generation to another.In particular, languages makes it possible to learn from cumulative ,shared experience. Without it,one could not inform others about events to which the others were not a party.

（4）Culture is integrated (文化是整体的)

● Integration :the tendency for all aspects of a culture to function as an interrelated whole.

For purpose of comparision and analysis ,anthropologists customarily break a culture down into many seemingly discrete parts,even through such distinctions are arbitrary. The anthropologists who examines one aspect of a culture invariably finds it necessary to examine others as well.

文化中的一个部分的变化会影响到其他部分. 虽然一定程度的和谐在任何合适的发挥功能的文化中都是必须的, 但是不应该假定完全的和谐是必须的. 没有两个个体有相同的濡化方式, 这样就总是存在某种变化的潜力. 对文化来讲, 如果各个部分是合理粘合的, 它就会充分合理的运行.

（5）Culture is universal (文化是普同的)

Murdock’s Cultural Universals

Age grading年龄划分   Etiquette礼节 Joking玩笑    Postnatal care育婴

Athletics竞技 Faith healing（以祷告及宗教信仰治病的）信仰疗法       Kin group亲属群   Pregnancy usages怀孕惯习

Bodily adornment化妆   family家庭     Kin terminology亲属称谓     Property rights财产权

Calendar日历 Feasting款待  Language语言       Propitiation of劝慰

Cleanliness training卫生       Fire making火的使用    Law法律       supernatural beings超自然力解说

Communitu organization社会组织       Folklore民间传说  Luck supersitions幸运的迷信      Puberty customs青春期习俗

Cooking烹饪  Food taboos食物禁忌   Magic巫术     Riligious ritual宗教仪式

Coperative labor合作劳动    Funeral rites丧葬仪式   Marriage婚姻 Residence rules居住原则

Cosmology宇宙观 Games游戏    Mealtimes进餐时间      Sexual restriction性的约束

Courtship示爱       Gestures手势 Medicine医药 Soul conception灵魂的概念

Dancing舞蹈  Gift giving礼物馈赠     Modesty谦虚 Status differntiation地位差异

Decortive art装饰艺术  Government政府   Mourning悲痛       Surgery手术

Division of labor劳动分工    Greeting问候 Music音乐     Tool making制造工具

Dream interpretation梦的解释     Hair style发型       Mythology神话     Trade交易

Education教育      Hospitality好客      Numerals数字       Visiting拜访

Eschatology末世论       Housing住所  Obstetrics助产术  Weaning 断奶

Ethics伦理     Hygiene卫生  Penal sanctions法律制裁（刑罚）      Weather control天气观测

Ethnobotany族群植物识别   Incest taboos乱伦禁忌 Personal names姓名    

       Inheritance rules遗产继承    Populaion policy人口政策   

 (6) culture is adaptive  (文化适应性)

● Culture represents the major way by which human populations adapt or relate to their enviroments so that they can continue to reproduce and survive. Most living organisms other than human s adapt to their enviroments by develoing physiological features that equip them to maximize their chances for survival .

 ●  The notion that culture is adaptive should not lead us to the conculsion that every aspect of a culture is adaptive . It is possible for some features to be adaptively neutral;that is ,neither enhancing nor diminishing the capacity of a people to survive. Moreover ,it is even possible for some features of a culture to be maladaptive or dysfunctional.

 ● An understnding of the adaptive nature of culture is further complicated by its relativity. What is adaptive in one culture may be maladaptive or adaptively neutral in another culture. For example

   Cross-cultural  miscue: sometimes our intentions can lead to breakdowns in cross—cultural communication.

第二节  How culture influnces biological processes

1.  Clyde Kluckhohn and the Navajo

  All animals ,including humans ,have certain biologically determined needs that must be met if they are to stay alive and well.

A dramatic example of how culture can influnce or channel our biological process was provided by anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn(克莱德.克拉克洪),who spent much of his career in the American Southwest studying the Navajo (纳瓦霍人(美国最大的印第安部落) ) culture.

2.  our bodies and culture

Our ideas,values,and attitudes can have an appreciable effect on the human body .

●Culturally deined attitudes concering male and female attractiveness,for example,have resulted in some dramatic effects on the body

 (1) Burmese(缅甸) women stretch out their necks with large numbers of neck rings ;

(2) Chinese women traditioanlly would bind their feet

(3) men in New Guinea(新几内亚) put bones through their noses

People intolerant of such different cultural practices frequently fail to realize the had they been raised in one of those other cultures ,they would be practicing those allegedlly disgusting or irrational customs.

● Our body stature is related to a large extent to ourcultural ideas.

  E.G.: In the western world ,people go to considerable lengths to become as slender as possible. Western notion of equating slimness with physical beaty is hardly universally accepted .In most of Africa ,western women are perceived as emaciated and unattractive.

3.  Mead and Coming of Age in Samon（<<萨毛人的青春期生活》）

第三节  cultural change(文化变更)

1、the processes of change(文化变化的过程)

  All cultures change over time,although not always as rapidly or as massively as many are doing today.Changes take place in response to such events as enviromental crises,instrusion of outsider ,or modification of behavior and values within the culture.

  Culture change according to 2 basic processes: internal changes (innovations) and external changes (cultural diffusion).

⑴ . innovation

● Innovation ---the ultimate source of all culture change ---can be spread to other cultures. Those same innovations can also occur at different times and in different cultures independently .But it is important to hear in mind that not all innovations lead to culture change. An individual can come up with a wonderfully novel thing or idea, but unless it is accepted and used by the wider society ,it will not lead to a change in the culture.

● Some internal changes involve only slight variations in already existing cultural patterns. In other cases ,the changes involve the fairly complex combination of a number of existinf culture cultural features to form a totally new cultural feature.To be certain,internal culture changes involve creativity,ingenuity ,and in some cases genius. To a large extent,however, the internal changes possible in any given culture are usually limited to what already exsist in a culture.

⑵   cultural diffusion

  The other source of culture change ,which comes from outside the culture ,is known as cultural diffusion—the spreading of a cultural element from one culture to another. As important as innovations are to the process of culture change ,cultural diffusion is actually responsible for the greatest amount of change that occurs in any society. In fact ,it has been estimated that the overwhelming majority of cultural elements found in any society at any time got there through the process of cultural diffusion rather than innovation.

  The reason for this is that is easier to borrow a thing ,an idea, or a behavior pattern than it is to invent it.

2、causes of cultural change(引起文化变化的原因)

  ⑴ technology  

⑵ ideas and values lead to culture change to the extent they cana motivate people to explore new ways to interacting with the enviroment,thereby inventing new items oftechnology.

⑶ culture change in resonse to change in the physical and social enviroment.

第四节 evaluating cultural differences (对不同文化的评价)

1、 ethnocentrism (种族中心主义)

⑴ Ethnocentrism——the belief that one’s own culture is most desirable and superior to all others.in other words ,it means viewing the restof the world through the narrow lens of one’s own culture.

⑵ exmples

2、 culture relativism(文化相对论)

⑴ Culture relativism---any part of a culture (idea,a thing or a behavior pattern) must be viewed from within its proper culture context rather than from the viewpoint of the observer’s culture.

 ● Culture relativity help rejects the notion that any culture,including our own,possess a set of absolute standards by which all other cultures can be juded .

● Culture relativity is a congtive tool that help us understand why people think and act the way they do.

● One must suspend judgment on other peoples’practices in order to understand them in other own cultural terms.

⑵ exmples

⑶ Boas  and  Culture relativism

  For Boas , Culture relativism was an ethical mandate as well as a strategic methodology for understanding other culture.In his attempt to counter the methodological abuses of people like Mcgee and set anthropology on a more scitific footing.

Boas perhaps overemphasized the importanc of culture relativism.If Culture relativism is taken to its logical extreme,we arrive at 2 indefensible positions:

● from a methodological perspective,if every society is a unique entity that can be evaluated only in term of its own standaeds,then any type of cross—culture comparison would be virtually impossible. Clearly ,howerver,if cultural anthropology is to accomplish its major objective—that is ,scientifically describing and comparing the world’s cultures—it needs some basis for comparison.

● A second difficulty with taking the notion of cultural relativism too literally is that ,from an ethicl standpoint ,we could have to conclude that absolutely no behavior found in the world be immoral provided the people who practice it occur that is morally acceptable or that isperforms a function foe wellbeing of the society.

文化相对论是文化人类学基本的观点和方法。在20世纪50年代成为一种比较流行的思潮，代表作是美国人类学家赫斯科维茨(J.Herskovits)的《文化人类学》（1964）。主要观点是每一种文化都有其独创性和充分的价值，每个文化都有自己的价值准则，一切文化的价值都是相对的，对各群体所起的作用都是相等的，因此文化谈不上进步或落后。主要内容有：1、认知相对论。认为人类的经验是由地方性的结构知识决定的，在很大程度上表现为一个社会、文化的建构，在这一意义上，文化相对论又被称作“社会结构主义”。2、逻辑相对论。认为不存在泛文化的或普遍性的逻辑、推理规则。20世纪70年代英国的哲学家、社会学家、人类学家曾就自然和普遍的逻辑推理与道德判断发生过一系列公开的争论。3、历史相对论。认为历史时代应被看作是不同的、观念的文化史或心智史，历史就是观念的变化表。4、语言相对论。关注独特的语言法则和词汇结构对思考习惯和类别的影响。5、道德相对论。认为一个人的道德行为只能从地方性的价值观而不能从普遍性的道德准则来判断。反对者宣称极端的道德相对论是非道德或潜在的不道德。因为它之所以能够形成道德判断，是对地方性知识或历史背景的妥协，以致人们的任何一种行为都会象种族灭绝那样受到谴责或定罪。6、发展相对论。主张相对于人的不同发展阶段，人便有不同的思想或价值。虽然文化相对论很少被当作是认知科学研究的问题，但是，认知人类学则为文化相对论的重构提供了有用的前景。对于认知人类学来说，一个文化构成一个独特的文化模式，一旦人被内化为这个模式，文化便会为人们提供方便的认知范型。另外，借助文化模式，民族、群体之间大的冲突或矛盾也很容易被认知。文化相对论对每个文化价值的肯定，有力地批评了欧美文化中心主义和民族中心主义的错误，推动了多元文化主义政策的实施，但它不加分析地把一切文化看作是有同等价值的，实际上是对文化进步的否定，对客观真理的否定。

⑷.   applied  perspective::cultural anthropologists can assist in the design of appropriate housing for culturally different people.

4、“primitive ”culture (所谓原始文化)

   A fundamental feature of the discipline of cultural anthropology is that it is comparative.Whether studying religions,economic systems,ways of resolving conflicts or art forms,cultural anthropologists look at these aspects of huamn behavior in the wide possible context,ranging from the most technologically simple foraging societies at one end of the continuum to the most highly industrialized societies at the other.Those societies with the simple technologies,one referred to as “primitive”, are derscribed by contemporary cultural anthropologists by other terms such as “preliterate””small scale””egalitarian ” or “technologically simple’

   Own to misleading implication that something ‘primitive” is both inferior and easier in a chronological sense,the rerm primitive will not be used in this text.Instead we use the term “small--scale”society,which refer to societies that

 (1)  have relatively small population

 (2)  are technologically simple

(3)  are usually preliterate

(4)  have little labor specialization

(5)  are unstratified 

5、Culture and the individual(文化与个人)

(1) How effectively people fit into their own group wll depend on the extent to which they adhere to those cultural expectations.

(2)  Deviance from cultural norms is found in all societies.Since individual members of any society maintain a free will,they have the freedom to say “no” to cultural expectation.

思考题：

1. What do anthropologists mean by the term culture?

2. How do we acquire our culture?

3. Despite the enormous variation in different cultures,are some common features found in all cultures in the world?

4. What is culture relativism and how can it help us better understand other culture?

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